Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1887-05-20

fathers seem to extend only to the third
and fourth generation, they have become
faint by effluX of time. The real main
spring of the agitation in regard to evic-
ton Of tenants from their holdings was
manufactured by Parliament in 1877
within the memory of many of us. You
recolleGt that in 1915 and 1916 there was
the potato famine in Ireland, and the peo-
pie got into terrible straits, They were
dying by the roadside and the mortality
was very great. rhe poor law in Ireland
did not allow any rates to be used for any
able-bodied person or persons out of the
work house. But in lS47, Parliament, see
ing this dire distress, with the most be-
nevoleut purpose passed an act which en-
titled the starving peasant to obtain re-
lief from the poor rates. AS usual the
Parliament at Westminster legislated
without knowing the effects of their legis-
lation on Ireland. The moment that the
landlords found burden put upon them
of supporting their tenants, they evicted
them from their holdings in the most
ruthless and wholesale manner.
Shame" What were these tenants
They were not like tenants in England
who take land, which a landlord has re-
claimed from bog, or improved at his
cost The Irish tenant had IN most cases
improved the land at his own cost and
had had mis- rent raised in consequence of
his own improvements. Shame These
were the men who were subject to whole
| sale eVlctlons. was sent over by the
prime minister during those distressed
| times as famine commissioner, and
therefore l know what was the terrible
state of Ireland then. But it has become
a matter of history, written dspassionate-
ly after the events. Let me read Won a
passage of that history out of Spencer
Walpole's History of England" volume
w., page $50: 1T has been the constant
curse of Ireland that measures for her re-
lief have sharpened her sufferings 4
In three years ending March, 1S49, 100 600
persons were evicted. ['Shame. " The
deaths in Irish warehouses, week for
week, equaled the mortality of the whole
OF London with its 100000 inhabitants,
whilst Others of them lay down on the
roadside and died. The Irish, who swarm
ed to England, died like flies clergymen,
doctors and relieving officers were struck
down by the fever which the Irish
brought. In England and Wales more
people died in 1913 than had ever before
died in any previous year-56,000 more
people then died than had died on an
average of any preceding year 4
Afraid, as the Irish were, to apply for re-
lief in England, lest they should be sent
back to starve in their own miserable
homes under the law of settlement, they
took refuge in the jails, and they brought
down wages in England to the lowest
point at which men could live" Here
was our Nemesis. Here was retribution
to England on account of its ignorant
legislation for the wants of Ireland If
these calamities had happened to your
fathers in 1S46-1S49, what would your
memories be now Hear, hear What
would be your feelings to Parliament
which made such a terrible legislative
blunder Hear, hear. Let me not give
my own belief that these memories are at
the root of the question of the present
day | will read you another quotation
If oil
sophical writer, Professor Cairns, who
says The disatfection now so widely
diffused throughout Ireland may possibly
in some degree be fed by historical tradi-
lions, and have its remote origin in the
conhscations of the nth century but all
dangerous, may, believe, be traced to the
evaporation produced by recent trans
actions, and more especially to the bitter
memories left by that most flagrant abuse
or the rights OF property, and the most
scandalous disregard of the rights of hui
period following the famine" You,
therefore, see what it is that has produced
this discomfort. Still Parliament has
gone on laundering in it's well-lntended
legislation. 1t passed the encountered es
tates act, which enabled new landlords
with means to buy out bankrupt land
lords-an act excellent in its intentions.
But Parliament was not aware that this
act robbed the tenants of all their i'm.
provements or of what is known as ten
ant rights. Then in 1870 we gave tenants
their rights, or rather we recognized
their rights by statute, for they existed in
fact long before the act of 1870 and we
subsequently established courts for judi.
clal rents. forgetting that the whole of
our agriculture was in a state of transi-
ton, and that the price of produce was
falling SO our acts--most benevolent
acts, conceived in a spirit of justice and
to produce good in Ireland, and have
sometimes been actually injurious. Even
so recently as 1881 an act was passed
enabling the Land Court to reduce rents
for fixed period of Is years. The ten
ants who thus got judicial reductions of
the rents are accused of being most I'M
reasonable in their demand for further
reductions, but the Royal Commission
which has just reported admits that
there has been fall in the value of agri-
cultural capital in Ireland to the extent
of 1871 per cent-in many districts it is a
great deal more, but their estimate of the
whole reduction is lS1a per cent-and
they recommend that revision of rent
should be fixed at five years instead of Is
years. Evlctions continue, and the tenants
in the poorest parts of Kerry have seen
their huts pulled down and their families
turned out on the bleak hillsides in the
uedu VI winter Sname'J while the
army and the police. in overwhelming
numbers, defended the sheriff and his
crowbar brigade in this wretched duty
shame" 1t is the law, and law must
be backed by force All that is truism
but 1t is also true that it is a humiliation
to the British people to see soldiers and
police employed in work which is emf
nently inhuman, though it may be strictly
legal. If the rack-renting portion of the
landlords had remembered that thes,
evictions would produce thrill of sym
pathy throughout Great Britain, they
would have reflected on the unwisdom O
their proceedings. In the wise sayings O.
the "Biglow Papers" Mr. Lowell ha
written:
"Laborin' man and laborin' woman
, HEY one glory an one shame
Ev'ythin' thet's done inhuman
lnjlrs all on 'em the same"
Cheers. Ii eviction must be kept as al
instrument of law, a wise landlord would